Thursday, May 1, 2014

We don't normally have groups of first graders at the CCBC (most of our student groups are in college) but this week we made an exception for thirty children from Sugar Creek Elementary School in Verona, Wisconsin. They were on campus to participate in a film their teacher has been making called "If You Want to Be a Reader." He wanted to get footage of his students reading on the University of Wisconsin campus.

They came to the CCBC in two groups of fifteen, ready to read. In preparation, I had set out a few dozen picture books and easy readers. Most of them were selected from CCBC Choices 2014 and from past winners of the Charlotte Zolotow Award.

We do this all the time when we host groups of college students, teachers, and librarians. We surround our visitors with good books, face out, that reflect the diversity we see in the world. It's always interesting to see what books people gravitate toward.

I asked the Sugar Creek first graders to take a look around. Did they see any books they recognized? "Each Kindness," one girl said. "Our teacher read it to us." Any others? They took a good look around, taking their job seriously. Lots of head shaking. "No." "I don't think so."

"Do you see any books you want to read?" Lots of nodding. A few excited children jumped up to point at the books they wanted me to read. Here's what they chose by consensus:

Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson ("We already know we like it," explained one boy.)

On this day that saw the launch of the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign, I saw first hand, in not one group but two, that given choices, young children themselves will choose diversity. And they all find underwear really, really funny, no matter who is wearing it.

Several years ago, a Korean American colleague of ours was in the CCBC reading the latest picture book by Yumi Heo. She was laughing aloud with nearly every page turn. "Oh, these pictures!" she said. "They're so Korean and so funny!" We loved the book ourselves but hadn't found the illustrations to be particularly funny. Or, for that matter, particularly Korean.

And that's the point. We're not Korean so we couldn't see it.

So that's why I find it a bit unsettling that School Library Journal's diversity issue includesCulturally Diverse Books Selected by SLJ’s Review Editors as a list that's divided into two sections: Culturally Specific and Culturally Generic/Neutral. The latter is defined by them as "... books ... in which the main
character(s) 'just happen' to be a member of a non-white, non-mainstream
cultural group. These stories, rather than informing readers about
individual cultures, emphasize cultural common ground."

Culturally Generic?

My first response was to ask: whose cultural common ground are we standing on? Would a Japanese-American reader of Cynthia Kadohata's novel The Thing about Luck likely see something in the book that a non-Japanese-American reader would miss, just as I missed the Korean humor in Yumi Heo's illustrations? Did Meg Medina's Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass have a cultural resonance for the members of the Pura Belpré Award Committee that led them to choose it as a book that "...best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience" rather than as a culturally generic/neutral novel selected by SLJ's review team?

My second response is to wonder why the books in the Culturally Generic/Neutral category need to be separated from the Culturally Specific category, which is defined as books featuring "...authentic and positive portrayals of
people from diverse ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds, as well
as characters who identify as LGBTQ or are from underrepresented
socioeconomic groups." Really? Then why is Matt De La Peña's The Living in the Generic/Neutral category? It's been a while since I read it, but what I remember most about it is that the main character was a working class Chicano kid, and his class, gender, and cultural identity played an important part in how he interacted with other people and how they interacted with him. Oh, and there was that tsunami.

In fact, it's interesting that ten of the thirteen books in the Generic/Neutral category were actually written by people who belong to the culture about which they are writing, while only seven of the thirteen Culturally Specific books were. The only book on the list with Native American characters was written by a white author. It was classed as "Culturally Specific." It makes me wonder how If I Ever Get out of Here by Eric Gansworth would have been classified if it had been included on the list. Would it have landed on the Generic side because the main character likes The Beatles?

Even more interesting is to look at how the stars fall on this list. Of the twenty-six books included, eleven are starred -- eight in the Culturally Specific category. Of these eight, five are written by white authors, outsiders to the cultures about which they are writing.

Culturally Generic?

Perhaps this suggests that Culturally Specific is really defined here as Otherness, and that this sense of Otherness is best depicted by those who are outsiders to the culture. But when Kwame Alexander or Varian Johnson write about African American boys, their characters are viewed as Culturally Generic. That may be because they are writing their characters from the inside, more Us than Other. They have invited readers to stand on their own bit of cultural common ground for a while. For African-American readers, that may be a familiar, comfortable place, and for those readers who are not African-American themselves, they will find that it's a common ground after all. And when it comes to cultural diversity, that will likely be more illuminating than finding out what exotic thing the character ate for breakfast.